On his part, Gerawat hoped Unimas and Yayasan Sarawak would give fair opportunity to Orang Ulu students, who are mostly from poor families, to obtain the scholarships.

“It may be necessary to consider a quota for Orang Ulu medical students and Yayasan sponsorship as a temporary process to provide opportunity for Orang Ulu students especially our Penan students to be admitted to Unimas medical faculty and to benefit from Yayasan Sarawak sponsorship.”

Dennis concurred with Gerawat, pointing out that the community produced very few medical doctors due to financial constraint and lack of exposure to the profession.

“Identify bright students and put them under a special project called ‘project doctor’ just like what Education Department is doing with regards to trainee teachers,” he said.

Dennis pointed out that the scholarships would be of great help to rural students as they are unable to compete with their urban counterparts for places in medical faculties due to the uneven ‘playing field’.

Both Gerawat and Penguang stressed that admission of students into Unimas medical faculty should be based on merit, so is the selection for the Yayasan scholarship.

At the same time, Gerawat urged Orang Ulu students to pursue technical courses or degree courses related to digital technology, whose graduates are much sought after.

He said the state has embarked on its journey to digital economy as envisioned by the chief minister.

Meanwhile, Penguang was happy that the chief minister had paved the way for rural students to realise their dream of becoming doctor through the scholarship offer.

“Take this as a very good opportunity and study hard to win these scholarship which is about RM100,000 per student or RM4 million for 40 students per year,” he said in his message to rural students.

He was happy to note that there were Ibans, Malays, Chinese and Orang Ulu students from Miri Division in the first batch of medical studies receiving the scholarship.

“It is heartening to see this, and this is the result of the committee of transformation led by Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan,” he said.